Edit Draft South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and all the rest....need Pan-Africanism

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Edit Draft South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and all the rest....need Pan-AfricanismThese two Reuters' stories, although not their intent, really accentuates the desperate need for a union socialist government to unite Africa...how can transport really be Cape Town to Cairo without the cooperation and resolution of the rest of Africa? That is the many states which would have to be directly involved and those which, though, not directly physically involved would have to be consulted as major changes, wrought by construction demolition and other factors of building rail, automobile and water (riparian, lake oceans) traffic and ancillary operations not impact the continental ecosystems to varying degrees? Equally in the second story about the growing Nile controversy how can it be resolved without the satisfaction of all the states that are part of the geographic and geo-economic realm of the Nile river system? It cannot, geo-politically speaking all parties to the controversy are obliged to press the adoption of the solutions that are best suited for it needs and agenda; thus there must be an overarching governing body/agency to adjudicate the situation, just as in the Cape-Cairo scheme.

Yet , both Egypt and South Africa have been leading opponents of Pan-Africanism, Egypt since the demise of the Nasser regime and South Africa, obviously during the direct control of the settler colonialists from Europe and equally today under the neo-colonial regime of the ANC elites and their allies. And this is equally true of most of the states involved in these issues.

There would have to be political revolution to move these elements away from their reaction pro-colonialist, pro-neo-colonialist positions...thus, once again we have to assert: To Make Economic-related progress we must have Union Government, we must have real Pan-Africanism,

Roy

Better transport key for Cape-to-Cairo trade pact

Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:25pm GMT

Alexander Dziadosz and Dina Zayed CAIRO, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Africa needs better road, air and sea transport to realise the dream of a Cape-to-Cairo free trade zone and reduce dependence on European markets, officials from the continent's two biggest economies said on Tuesday.
Hundreds of Egyptian and South African businessmen were meeting in Cairo as part of a high-level state visit that included President Jacob Zuma, aimed at bolstering currently weak trade ties between the two countries.
More robust regional trade could help Africa unlock its economic potential, but while many trade arrangments already exist, infrastucture has lagged the continent's needs and complicated trade between its countries.
Air travel between some parts of Africa, for instance, can still require a layover overseas.
"If you wanted to reach some countries on the continent, you'd have to go to Europe first, then sleep on the way, wake up in the morning, wait until sunset and then fly back to Africa. That must come to an end," Zuma said at the conference.
"And nobody else can do it except ourselves."
The two countries are trying to seal a free trade deal that would encompass the 19-country Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the 15-country Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African common market.
Such a pact could cover 700 million people in the world's poorest continent and help African countries keep pace with economies like China and India, which benefit from large domestic consumer bases. [ID:nLDE69H275]
But this will take more than just deals on paper.
"We have to have the access by land, by sea, by air. We need to increase the access dramatically," Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid on the sidelines of the conference.
"So far it's been taking forever, I hope that things will start to move," he told Reuters, adding politics and the difficulty of crossing 12 to 15 countries' borders could also be a hurdle to getting the trade zone going.

BETTER TIES
Africa now has some 30 regional trade arrangements, but receives less than 4 percent of global foreign direct investment, partly because copious red tape and corruption tend to discourage foreign business.

South Africa exported just 1.2 billion rand ($175 million) worth of goods to Egypt and imported 231.3 million rand worth from the Arab country in 2009.
Egyptian and South African officials and businessmen said they saw a chance to improve these figures by encouraging investment and trade in fields such as automotives, energy, agro-processing, tourism and technology.
Tuesday's meeting was the biggest state visit between the two African countries since at least 1994.
A delegation of Egyptian officials and businessmen is expected to visit South Africa in February. Continuing talks on the Cape-to-Cairo free trade zone will also be on the agenda. (Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Jul 7, 2010 08:59 EDT
The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam.
The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes through.
Allam bared his teeth when a Kenyan journalist accused him of hiding behind “colonial-era treaties” giving his country the brunt of the river’s vital waters whether that hurt the poorer upstream countries or not.
“You obviously don’t know enough about this subject to be asking questions about it,” he snapped before later apologising to her with a kiss on the cheek.
Five of the nine Nile countries — Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya — last month signed a deal to share the water that is a crucial resource for all of them. But Egypt and Sudan, who are entitled to most of the water and can veto upstream dams under a 1929 British-brokered agreement, refused.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have not signed yet either and analysts are divided on whether they will or not. Six Nile countries must sign the agreement for it to have any power but Egypt says even that wouldn’t change its mind. The five signatories — some of the world’s poorest countries — have left the agreement open for debating and possible signing for up to a year.
Tensions were clearly still running high after two days of negotiations in Addis and despite grinning around the table and constantly referring to each other as “my brother”, the ministers always seemed in danger of breaking into bickering.
When the Sudanese water minister said his country was freezing cooperation with the Nile Basin Initiative — the name given to the ten-year effort to agree on how to manage the river — Ethiopia’s water minister loudly protested to the media that his Sudanese colleague had not revealed that during their private meetings.
Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga, arrived in Addis Ababaon Wednesday to again meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
It’s no surprise that the spat is getting a lot of press in both Ethiopia and Egypt.
“Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” people like to say in a country that worshipped the river as a God in ancient times. “If Egypt is a gift of the Nile, then the Nile is a gift of Ethiopia,” Ethiopians shoot back with growing confidence.
And they have a point. More than 85 percent of the waters originate in Ethiopia, which relies on foreign aid for survival and sees hydropower dams as a potential cash cow and central to its plans to become one of Africa’s only power exporters.
But Egypt is not for turning. Almost totally dependent on the Nile for its agricultural output (a third of its economy) and already worried about climate change, it is determined to hold onto its 55.5 billion cubic metres of water a year, a seemingly unfair share of the Nile’s total flow of 84 billion cubic metres.
The Egyptians point out that they don’t benefit from rains like the upstream countries. Everybody, it seems, has valid points. Nobody is budging. Now some regional analysts are even saying the row could turn into the world’s first major water war and similar thoughts are being expressed in cafes from Cairo all the way upriver to Dar es Salaam.
So what next? The nine countries are due to meet again in Nairobi sometime between September and November. But where is the way forward? Who will blink first? And who really should? Could this bickering turn violent?Nile River row: Could it turn violent? | Analysis & Opinion |

That was done because I want you to take the raw material I have given you and reshape it into a form that you can use as ORGANIZERS for our liberation in a form that is best suited for the audience you generally interact with.

That is I hope that you are now comfortable with the idea of YOU actually taking the lead and agitating for Pan-Africanism (socialist union government in Africa owned by and serving Africans across the globe.)

I am confident that you can do this...and indeed it is this confidence that allows me to lessen my activities on the board --- because I know that the many strong organizers active on this forum will take the ball and run with it...if that is not so, then we have failed in our duty (that is a tactical and short term failure, as the struggle per se is never over).

Anyone who feels the need to communicate with me directly on this subject matter feel free to email me at: rwalker949@aol.com

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Assata Shakur Speaks is an Forum Devoted To Assata Shakur And All Political Prisoners Around The World. Assata Shakur Speaks Is An Oasis Of Pan African Information Geared Towards The Liberation Of Afrikan People.